Results Overview

At a congress in Berlin, the Western powers divide the Balkans in the aftermath of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by Russia that January. Under the Treaty of San Stefano, signed that March, Bulgaria received territory as far west as central Albania and Serbia took the northern part of Kosova. Western countries refuse to accept this settlement, and instead return Kosova and Macedonia to the Ottomans, Serbia gets only the area north of Nis, and Bulgaria’s territory also shrinks. Montenegro gets northern parts of the future Albania, including Peja, Ulqin, Pllava, Guci, Hot, Gruda, Tivar, Vermosh, Kelmend, Kraja, and Anamal, which had been part of Kosova under the Ottomans. This division angers Albanian leaders and sows hostility between Albanians and Serbs. According to Albanian scholar and diplomat Paulin Kola, Albanian anger comes from the way the congress exposes its powerlessness and divides the Balkans without concern for the ethnicity of its inhabitants. The settlement also sparks ethnic cleansing. According to Kola, up to 50,000 Albanians are expelled from Kosova, as government policy. Serbs are also expelled, but this is localized. Kola will come to believe fewer were expelled than the Serbian academic figure of 150,000, which is about the total Serb population of Kosova at this time. [Kola, 2003, pp. 8-9]

Entity Tags: Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Macedonia, Paulin Kola, Russia, Montenegro, Ottoman Empire

Timeline Tags: Kosovar Albanian Struggle

Vaso Cubrilovic, a historian at Belgrade University and member of Belgrade’s Serbian Cultural Club, and participant in the terrorist Black Hand group in 1914, writes a memorandum, “The Expulsion of the Arnauts” (an archaic word for Albanian in Turkish), building on the Nacertanje plan. He sees Yugoslavia’s Albanians as a strategic threat, dividing Slavic areas and controlling key river routes, “which, to a large degree, determines the fate of the central Balkans.” Cubrilovic’s proposal is justified because of the risk that “a world conflict or a social revolution” in the near future could cause Yugoslavia to lose its Albanian majority areas and because, despite earlier colonization programs, Montenegro is still overpopulated for its hardscrabble farmlands. He says that, given the current world situation, “the shifting of a few hundred thousand Albanians will not lead to the outbreak of a world war.” He foresees opposition from Italy and Albania, but says Italy is preoccupied in Africa, while Zog’s government could be bought off with money. France and the UK are also potential opponents, but he says they should be told expelling Albanians will benefit them. Cubrilovic contrasts prior “Western methods” with his preferred strategy, under which occupation “confers the right to the lives and property of the subject inhabitants.” Cubrilovic believes slow transfer of deeds impeded the prior program. Paulin Kola will later describe the memorandum as “a fuller platform for the colonization of Kosova.” Cubrilovic calls for a range of measures, from enforcing “the law to the letter so as to make staying intolerable,” such as punishments for owning wandering dogs and smuggling, and “any other measures that an experienced police force can contrive,” denying professional permits, rejecting deeds, desecrating graves, and burning villages and neighborhoods, without revealing state involvement. He says clerics and influential Kosovar Albanians should be bribed or coerced to support transfer. He proposes that the new program be implemented by the Army General Staff, a new Institute of Colonization, and a multi-ministry inspectorate. These methods would lead to the deportation and migration of Albanians to Turkey and other countries. Then Montenegrins, who Cubrilovic describes as “arrogant, irascible, and merciless people” who “will drive the remaining Albanians away with their behavior,” would be settled in Kosova. Ethnic conflict would be fanned, to “be bloodily suppressed with the most effective means” by Montenegrin settlers and Chetniks. Yugoslavia’s parliament considers the memorandum on March 7, 1937. Once Turkey agrees to accept deported Yugoslav Albanians, Albanians are limited to an untenable 0.16 hectares for each member of a family, unless their ownership is proven to the satisfaction of the authorities. Two hundred thousand to 300,000 people leave Yugoslavia during this period. Officially, 19,279 Albanians emigrate to Turkey and 4,322 emigrate to Albania between 1927 and 1939, and a few go to Arab countries, while 30,000 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes emigrate each year. Cubrilovic remains influential in Yugoslavia through World War II. [Vickers, 1998, pp. 116-120; Kola, 2003, pp. 21, 100-104]

Entity Tags: France, Black Hand, Italy, Chetniks, Paulin Kola, Turkey, Belgrade University, Ahmet Zog I, Serbian Cultural Club, Yugoslavia, United Kingdom, Vaso Cubrilovic, Albania

Timeline Tags: Kosovar Albanian Struggle

In accord with the Vienna pact, Germany takes Trepca for its mines, as well as the Lab, Vucitrn, and Dezevo (Novi Pazar) districts, creating a territory called the Kosovo Department. Security forces composed of, and led by, Albanians are formed—a gendarmerie of about 1,000 and about 1,000 irregulars, called the Vulnetara. Bulgaria annexes the Gnjilane, Kacanik, and Vitin districts. Italy takes much of Kosovo and the towns of Debar, Tetovo, Gostivar, and Struga, about 11,780 square kilometers and 820,000 people. In May this area is merged with Albania, occupied by Italy on April 7, 1939. Albanian forces are raised by the Italian army, Albanian is spoken in government and education for the first time, and the Albanian flag flies in Italian Kosovo. Albanians are able to freely travel through Albanian areas. Serbs and Montenegrins are imprisoned, deported for forced labor, or killed by occupation forces. Many are deported to Pristina and Mitrovica to labor in the mines of Trepca, or to Albania for construction. According to Serbs, Albanian attacks, generally against settlers, force about 10,000 Slavic families to leave Kosovo. Collaboration and resistance groups form throughout the occupied Balkans. [Vickers, 1998, pp. 121-122; Kola, 2003, pp. 22-23]

Entity Tags: Germany, Italy, Albania, Vulnetara, Bulgaria, Kosovo

Timeline Tags: Kosovar Albanian Struggle

After World War II, both the Albanians and the Yugoslavs seek military aid from the USSR. Later, Hoxha says military regulations are changed too frequently, allegedly a Yugoslav effort to weaken the Albanian military. Therefore Hoxha supports the appointment of Mehmet Shehu, who led a division during the War and is studying in the USSR, as Chief of the General Staff. Nako Spiru recommends him and Koci Xoxe and Pandi Kristo do not oppose the appointment. (Decades later, when he recounts this, Hoxha states that Shehu was part of a multiple foreign plot to assassinate him.) Soviet advisers are brought in, and Hoxha says the Yugoslavs try to cause friction between the Albanians and Soviets. At a meeting in Belgrade, Svetozar Vukmanovic-Tempo, Political Director of the Yugoslav military, tells Mehmet Shehu and Kristo Themelko, Director of the Political Directory of the Albanian military, that only Yugoslav military doctrine is relevant in the Balkans and Europe. In July Vukmanovic-Tempo and Koca Popovic, Chief of the Yugoslav General Staff, come to Albania and, according to Themelko, say that their two militaries should be unified, as the economies are being unified, and that Yugoslavia will fund the Albanian military. Shehu tells Hoxha that he did not hear these comments. Hoxha says he is “shocked” to hear this and disagrees. Hoxha says that Savo Zlatic confirms in November 1947 that the Yugoslavs do want military unification. [Hoxha, 1982, pp. 427 - 435]

Entity Tags: Koci Xoxe, Albania, Koca Popovic, Kristo Themelko, Enver Hoxha, Mehmet Shehu, Pandi Kristo, Nako Spiru, Yugoslavia, Savo Zlatic, Svetozar Vukmanovic-Tempo

Timeline Tags: Kosovar Albanian Struggle

A 2006 analysis compiled jointly by US and Croatian intelligence will reveal that al-Qaeda began infiltrating the Balkans region even before the start of the Bosnian war in 1992. Kamer Eddine Kherbane, a member of Algerian militant group GIA, moved to Zagreb, Croatia, in 1991 to set up a charity front at the direct request of Osama bin Laden. The organization, called Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) or Al-Kifah, is closely tied to al-Qaeda. Its Brooklyn, New York, branch called the Al-Kifah Refugee Center is tied to both the 1993 WTC bombers and the CIA (see 1986-1993). [Associated Press, 4/17/2006] Apparently the Zagreb branch of MAK/Al-Kifah is also called the Al-Kifah Refugee Center like the Brooklyn branch and has very close ties with that branch (see Early 1990s). A Spanish police report will later claim that Kherbane is the head of the Zagreb branch. [CNN, 12/8/2002] The analysis will allege that Kherbane used Al-Kifah “to infiltrate GIA members into Bosnia,” and that Iran and unnamed Arab countries paid for the operation through money transfers. [Associated Press, 4/17/2006] Kherbane appears to have begun working with other radical militants in Bosnia in 1990 (see 1990).

Entity Tags: Al-Kifah Refugee Center, Osama bin Laden, Groupe Islamique Armé, Kamer Eddine Kherbane, Maktab al-Khidamat

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

The Pentagon helps bring thousands of mujaheddin and other Islamic militants from Central Asia into Europe to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs. [Wiebes, 2003; Spectator, 9/6/2003] Bin Laden plays a key organizing role. [Los Angeles Times, 10/7/2001] As a result, the Balkans become a “safe haven” and “staging area” for Islamist terrorism. [Washington Post, 11/30/1995; Los Angeles Times, 10/7/2001]

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Soon after Bosnian Muslims declare independence from Yugoslavia (see April 6, 1992), Muslim volunteers from all of the Muslim world come to help fight against the Bosnian Serbs. These volunteers are generally known as the mujaheddin, just as they were in the 1980s war in Afghanistan (and many fought there as well). A military analyst will later call them “pretty good fighters and certainly ruthless.” However, their numbers are small, never reaching more than 4,000 (see 1993-1995). In an interview shortly after 9/11, Richard Holbrooke, Balkans peace negotiator for the US, will say, “I think the Muslims wouldn’t have survived without” help from the mujaheddin. But he will also call their help “a pact with the devil” from which Bosnia is still recovering. [Los Angeles Times, 10/7/2001]

Entity Tags: Richard Holbrooke

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Ayman al-Zawahiri in disguise. [Source: Interpol]Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri is said to visit Bosnia many times from around this date. A prominent Muslim Bosnian politician later claims that al-Zawahiri visited mujaheddin camps in central Bosnia as early as September 1992. The Egyptian government, which considers al-Zawahiri an important enemy, claims al-Zawahiri is running several mujaheddin operations in Bosnia through charity fronts. They also claim he meets regularly with Bosnian Muslim politicians in Sarajevo. He is further said to occasionally meet with Iranian government representatives to discuss the war in Bosnia, as Iran is supplying weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 123, 141] Anwar Shaaban, a radical imam leading the Bosnian mujaheddin effort from Milan, Italy (see Late 1993-1994), remains in regular contact with al-Zawahiri, according to Italian intelligence. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 164] In 1993, bin Laden reportedly puts al-Zawahiri in charge of the organization’s operations in the Balkans. [Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001] By 1994, al-Zawahiri will settle in Bulgaria to manage operations in Bosnia and the rest of the Balkan region (see September 1994-1996).

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Anwar Shaaban, Ayman al-Zawahiri

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Al-Hajj Boudella. [Source: Public domain via National Public Radio]Enaam Arnaout, head of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) in the US and an al-Qaeda operative, personally arranges for nine elite instructors from the Al-Sadda training camp in Afghanistan to be sent to central Bosnia to train mujaheddin there. One of the trainers is Al-Hajj Boudella, who will become the long-time director of the BIF’s office in Bosnia. He will be arrested shortly after 9/11 and renditioned to the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002 (see January 18, 2002). [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 19-20, 255]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Enaam Arnaout, Benevolence International Foundation, Al-Hajj Boudella

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Intelligence services operating in the Balkans, especially US intelligence, become increasingly politicized and are under pressure to produce reports with a pro-Bosnian, anti-Serb slant. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 86, 141] For instance, one CIA report in 1995 blaming the Bosnian Serbs for the vast majority of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia will later be accused of distorting the facts to fit an anti-Serb slant (see March 9, 1995).

Entity Tags: US intelligence

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Ayman al-Zawahiri. [Source: Interpol]In 1996 it will be reported that the Egyptian government has been investigating Ayman al-Zawahiri and has determined he has been living in Sofia, Bulgaria, since September 1994 under an alias. Al-Zawahiri, head of Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, is considered one of Egypt’s top enemies. The Egyptians pass on details of al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts to the Bulgarian government, but Bulgaria has no extradition treaty with Egypt and he is not believed to have broken any Bulgarian laws. Al-Zawahiri is living there mainly to help manage the mujaheddin effort in nearby Bosnia. Prior to that, it is believed he mostly lived in Switzerland for about a year. [BBC, 2/29/1996; Intelligence Newsletter, 3/21/1996] A Wall Street Journal article will later claim that al-Zawahiri was in charge of al-Qaeda’s Balkans operations, running training camps, money-laundering, and drug running networks in the region. Supposedly there was an “elaborate command-and-control center” in Sofia, Bulgaria. [Wall Street Journal (Europe), 1/11/2001] His brother Mohammed al-Zawahiri also helps manage operations in the region, mostly from a base in Albania (see 1993). With the war in Bosnia over, Ayman al-Zawahiri will attempt to enter Chechnya in late 1996, only to be arrested and held by the Russians (see December 1, 1996-June 1997).

Entity Tags: Ayman al-Zawahiri

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Eve-Ann Prentice. [Source: BBC]In 2006, London Times reporter Eve-Ann Prentice will testify under oath during Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s international war crimes tribunal that she saw Osama bin Laden go into a meeting with Muslim Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic. Prentice was there with Der Speigel reporter Renate Flottau waiting for an interview with Izetbegovic when bin Laden walked by (see 1994). Prentice will later recall, “[T]here was a very important looking Arabic looking person is the best way I can describe it who came in and went ahead just before I was supposed to go in to interview, and I was curious because it obviously looked as if it was somebody very, very important, and they were shown straight through to Mr. Izetbegovic’s office.” Curious, Prentice asked around and found out from Flottau and another eyewitness that the person was bin Laden, then Prentice confirmed this for herself when she later saw pictures of bin Laden. Interestingly, the judge at Milosevic’s trial will cut off questions about the incident and there will be no mentions of it by journalists covering the trial, though a transcript of the exchange will eventually appear on the United Nation’s International Criminal Tribunal website. [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, 2/3/2006] Prentice apparently will no longer be reporting by 2006, but in 2002 she mentioned in passing in a Times article, “Osama bin Laden visited the Balkans several times in the 1980s and 1990s and is widely believed by Serbs to have aided Muslims in the Bosnian war and the Kosovo conflict.” [London Times, 3/5/2002] Bin Laden also visited Izetbegovic in 1993 (see 1993).

Entity Tags: Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Alija Izetbegovic, Eve-Ann Prentice, Renate Flottau

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi fight in the Bosnian civil war against the Serbs. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 131 ] The 9/11 Commission will later say that the two “traveled together to fight in Bosnia in a group that journeyed to the Balkans in 1995,” but will not give any other details. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 155] Ramzi bin al-Shibh fights there too, and a witness later recounts traveling to Hamburg from Bosnia with bin al-Shibh in 1996. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 281-282] 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) fights in Bosnia in 1995 as well (see 1992-1995), but it is not known if any of them are ever there together. Under interrogation, KSM will say that in 1999 he did not know Almihdhar. However, doubts will be expressed about the reliability of statements made by KSM in detention, because of the methods used to extract them (see June 16, 2004). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006, pp. 17 ] Alhazmi and Almihdhar will later go on to fight in Chechnya (see 1993-1999).

Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Khalid Almihdhar, Ramzi bin al-Shibh

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

According to a report in Jane’s Intelligence Review, Albanian narco-terrorism, gun-running, and smuggling organizations are becoming a dominant economic, political, and military force in the Balkans. Jane’s expresses the concern that if left unchecked, the Albanian mafia will become powerful enough to control one or more states in the region. Albanian President Sali Berisha “is now widely suspected of tolerating and even directly profiting from drug-trafficking for wider political-economic reasons, namely the financing of secessionist political parties and other groupings in Kosovo and Macedonia.” [Jane's Intelligence Review, 2/1/1995]

Entity Tags: Albania, Sali Berisha

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

The CIA and Albanian intelligence recruit an informer knowledgeable about al-Qaeda in the Balkans. The informer, whose name is Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, but is known as Abu Omar, is recruited by a special unit of the Albanian National Intelligence Service (ShIK) created at the behest of the CIA. An officer in the unit, Astrit Nasufi, will say that the unit is actually run by a CIA agent known as “Mike” who is based on the US embassy in Tirana, Albania, and who teaches them intelligence techniques. The CIA and ShIK are worried about a possible assassination attempt against the Egyptian foreign minister, who is to visit Albania soon, so about twelve radical Egyptians, members of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad, are detained beforehand. Nasr is not on the list, but is detained because of a link to a suspect charity, the Human Relief and Construction Agency (HRCA). He is held for about 10 days and, although he initially refuses to talk, ShIK has a “full file” on him after a week. He provides information about around ten fellow Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya members working for HRCA and two other charities, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, both of which will be declared designated supporters of terrorism after 9/11. However, he says there are no plans to kill the Egyptian foreign minister, as this would mean Albania would no longer be a safe haven for fundamentalist Muslims. The intelligence Nasr goes on to provide is regarded as good quality and includes the identities of operatives monitoring the US embassy and entering and leaving Albania. The CIA is most interested in monitoring former mujaheddin joining the Bosnian Muslims, and Nasr also provides intelligence on Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya branches in Britain, Germany, and Italy, in particular the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, which is a base for mujaheddin operations in the Balkans and is raided by the Italian government around this time (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995). Even though cooperation appears to be good, after a few weeks Nasr suddenly disappears and the CIA tells ShIK that Nasr has moved to Germany. [Chicago Tribune, 7/2/2005] Nasr will later surface in Italy and will become close to Islamic militants in Milan (see Summer 2000), but will be kidnapped by the CIA after 9/11 (see Noon February 17, 2003).

Entity Tags: Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, Islamic Jihad, State Intelligence Service (Albania), Central Intelligence Agency, Astrit Nasufi, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, Islamic Cultural Institute, Human Relief and Construction Agency, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

Timeline Tags: Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Complete 911 Timeline, Kosovar Albanian Struggle

The New York Times publishes an op-ed piece by Jacob Heilbrunn and Michael Lind titled, “The Third American Empire,” in which the authors assert that US military involvement in the Balkans should not be seen as the assertion of US influence in Europe, but as part of a strategy to exert US dominance in the Middle East and Central Asia. “[W]e should view the Balkans as the western frontier of America’s rapidly expanding sphere of influence in the Middle East,” they write. [New York Times, 1/2/1996]

Entity Tags: Jacob Heilbrunn, Michael Lind

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

The Project for a New American Century publishes an open letter to President Clinton urging him put an end to diplomatic efforts attempting to resolve the situation in the Balkans. Instead, they argue, he should take “decisive action” against the Serbs. The US must “distance itself from Milosevic and actively support in every way possible his replacement by a democratic government committed to ending ethnic violence,” the group writes. [Century, 9/11/1998]

Entity Tags: William Pfaff, Peter Rodman, Peter Kovler, Paula J. Dobriansky, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Seth Cropsey, William Kristol, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William Howard Taft IV, Paul Wolfowitz, Wayne Owens, Stephen Solarz, Nina Bang-Jensen, Morton H. Halperin, Elliott Abrams, Ed Turner, Frank Carlucci, Dov S. Zakheim, David Epstein, Bruce Jackson, Dennis DeConcini, Morton I. Abramowitz, Gary Schmitt, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Lane Kirkland, John R. Bolton, George Biddle, Mark P. Lagon, Jeffrey T. Bergner, John Heffernan, James R. Hooper, Jeane Kirkpatrick

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

United Nations police raid a house in Pristina, Kosovo, rented by the Saudi Joint Relief Committee (SJRC). The house was rented by Wael Hamza Julaidan, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, and is discovered to be an al-Qaeda safe house. Shortly after the raid, the BBC reports that the US sent UN police a secret document asking them to monitor those connected to the house. It states that Julaidan is an associate of Osama bin Laden, and helped him “move money and men to and from the Balkans.” The SJRC is an umbrella body for several other Saudi charities and is partly financed by the Saudi government. [BBC, 4/3/2000] In a 1999 interview broadcast on the Al Jazeera television network, bin Laden referred to the origins of al-Qaeda and said, “We were all in one boat, as is known to you, including our brother, Wael Julaidan.” [Kohlmann, 2004] However, despite this openly shown interest in Julaidan, the US will not freeze his assets until late 2002 (see September 6, 2002). Julaidan has just been made director general of the Rabita Trust, a charity with many prominent Pakistanis on its board of directors, including Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (see Mid-September-October 12, 2001).

Entity Tags: Saudi Joint Relief Committee, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Wael Hamza Julaidan, Rabita Trust

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

The first Predator flight over Afghanistan on September 7, 2000 captures bin Laden circled by security in his Tarnak Farms complex. [Source: CBC]An unmanned spy plane called the Predator begins flying over Afghanistan, showing incomparably detailed real-time video and photographs of the movements of what appears to be bin Laden and his aides. It flies successfully over Afghanistan 16 times. [9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004] President Clinton is impressed by a two-minute video of bin Laden crossing a street heading toward a mosque inside his Tarnak Farms complex. Bin Laden is surrounded by a team of a dozen armed men creating a professional forward security perimeter as he moves. The Predator has been used since 1996, in the Balkans and Iraq. One Predator crashes on takeoff and another is chased by a fighter, but it apparently identifies bin Laden on three occasions. Its use is stopped in Afghanistan after a few trials, mostly because seasonal winds are picking up. It is agreed to resume the flights in the spring, but the Predator fails to fly over Afghanistan again until after 9/11. [Washington Post, 12/19/2001; Clarke, 2004, pp. 220-21] On September 15, 2001, CIA Director Tenet apparently inaccurately tells President Bush, “The unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft that was now armed with Hellfire missiles had been operating for more than a year out of Uzbekistan to provide real-time video of Afghanistan.” [Washington Post, 1/29/2002]

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, George J. Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Washington Post syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, speaking on “Inside Washington” in a discussion with fellow Post columnist Charlie King and Post military reporter Thomas Ricks, argues in favor of the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq. At one point, moderator Gordan Petersons asks what the US should do after deposing Saddam Hussein. Krauthammer responds: “We don’t speak about exit strategies; this is not Bosnia, or Haiti, or the Balkans. This is very important, everybody understands it, we are not going to run away. We are going to get there, and we are going to stay. We are going to try to make a reasonably civil society, reasonably pro-American, a good influence on the neighbors, and disarmed. That’s a large undertaking, and I think we are absolutely [unintelligible] everybody who is supporting the war or the invasion is in favor of staying and doing the job.” When Thomas Ricks notes that Krauthammer’s proposal would involve nine of the US Army’s ten active-duty divisions, he counters, “That assumption is entirely unwarranted. I think we will be accepted as liberators, as we were in Afghanistan.” He also shoots down a comment from Peterson referring to the cost of invading Iraq. “If we win the war, we are in control of Iraq, it is the single largest source of oil in the world, it’s got huge reserves, which have been suppressed because of Iraq’s actions, and Saddam’s. We will have a bonanza, a financial one, at the other end, if the war is successful,” Krauthammer explains. [WUSATV, 8/3/2002; Unger, 2007, pp. 289]

Entity Tags: Charlie King, Charles Krauthhammer, Thomas Ricks, Washington Post

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Washington, DC lobbying firm Piper Rudnick begins to garner support in the US Congress for the independence of Kosovo, as part of a $30,000 a month contract. The project, which “calls for it to relay Kosovo’s take on political, economic, human rights, intelligence, and security concerns in the Balkans,” is headed by former State Department official Marshall Harris. Previously, Harris had been a vice president at Freedom House, and the chairman of the Acquisition Support Institute, an organization that worked to facilitate the training of the Bosnian military. [Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter, 2/5/2003]

Entity Tags: Piper Rudnick, Marshall Harris

Timeline Tags: Kosovar Albanian Struggle

9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow appoints a current CIA officer, Michael Hurley, to lead the commission’s investigation of counterterrorism policy. This team will be responsible for reviewing the performance of the CIA and NSC (see Around February 2003). Author Philip Shenon will describe Hurley, merely loaned to the commission from the CIA, as a “battle-hardened spy.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 86-87] As well as holding a number of management positions at CIA headquarters over his career, Hurley served three tours in Afghanistan after 9/11, leading CIA employees and Special Forces in the country’s southeast. He was one of the Agency’s lead coordinators on the ground of Operation Anaconda, the largest battle against al-Qaeda in the campaign in Afghanistan. The station chief Hurley presumably served under in Afghanistan was Rich B (see December 9, 2001), whose performance as the manager responsible for the CIA’s bin Laden unit (see June 1999) Hurley is now supposed to review. From 1998-1999, and again in 2000, Hurley was detailed to the National Security Council, where he was director for the Balkans, and advised the national security adviser and the president on Balkans policy. He has also led US interventions in troubled areas: Kosovo (1999-2000); Bosnia (1995-1996); and Haiti (1994-1995). [9/11 Public Discourse Project, 8/8/2008] Besides Hurley, the staffers on the counterterrorism review team include Warren Bass, a terrorism researcher on the Council for Foreign Relations who will focus on the NSC, and Alexis Albion, a doctoral candidate in intelligence studies at Harvard who will look into the CIA. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 87]

Entity Tags: Philip Zelikow, Warren Bass, 9/11 Commission, Michael Hurley, Alexis Albion

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

In January 2004, a US naval vessel stops a small fishing boat in the Arabian Sea. According to a Western anti-narcotics official, a search turns up “several al-Qaeda guys sitting on a bale of drugs.” Later that month, a raid on a drug runner’s house in Kabul, Afghanistan, leads to the discovery of a number of satellite phones. The CIA determines the phones had been used to call numbers linked to suspected al-Qaeda-linked operatives in Turkey, the Balkans, and Western Europe. One official describes this as part of “an incredibly sophisticated network.” In March 2004, US troops raiding a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in remote Afghanistan discover opium with a street value of $15 million. [Time, 8/2/2004]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

In an interview with Christopher Deliso of Antiwar.com, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds says that the US government—the State Department in particular—consistently blocks counterterrorism investigations that come too close to certain top-level people. “We go for the Attas and Hamdis—but never touch the guys on the top.… [It] would upset ‘certain foreign relations.’ But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons- smuggling—and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.… [A]ll of these high-level criminal operations involve working with foreign people, foreign countries, the outside world—and to a certain extent these relations do depend on the continuation of criminal activities.” Edmonds says that the government’s investigation into the financing of al-Qaeda is a case in point. “You know, they are coming down on these charities as the finance of al-Qaeda.… [But] a very small percentage comes from these charity foundations. The vast majority of their financing comes from narcotics. Look, we had 4 to 6 percent of the narcotics coming from the East, coming from Pakistan, coming from Afghanistan via the Balkans to the United States. Today, three or four years after Sept. 11, that has reached over 15 percent. How is it getting here? Who are getting the proceedings from those big narcotics?… But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved.” She says that her allegations against co-worker Melek Can Dickerson and her lawsuit against the FBI are just the tip of the iceberg. She expresses frustration that the media wants to only focus on the whistleblower aspect of her case instead of looking into the substance of her allegations. She says that it was completely by chance that she stumbled over an ongoing investigation into this international criminal network. “You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the [Valerie] Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.” [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005]

Entity Tags: Sibel Edmonds, US Department of State, Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline